Meet the juror and demonstrator for this year’s IWS show
Beth Shadur of Highland Park, Illinois, is the 39th Illinois Watercolor Society National Show juror and demonstrator. The show runs April 28-May 28, 2023, at The Next Picture Show (TNPS) in Dixon, Illinois. Shadur is set to demonstrate her watercolor technique during the show’s opening reception on May 6, 1-4 p.m.
Shadur is an artist who has exhibited widely in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad, including at the Art Institute of Chicago; the Drawing Center in New York City; the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY; the Butler Institute of Art in Youngstown, Ohio; and at the Colorado Springs Art Museum, Colorado Springs, CO.
Beth Shadur biography
Shadur has created over 150 large public murals as public, private and community art projects in both the United States and Great Britain. She was an Artist-in-Education for the Illinois Arts Council in Chicago, IL. She has taught and served as a visiting artist at many colleges and universities, including Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; Northeast Missouri State University, Kirksville, MO; and as a visiting artist and scholar at Paradise Valley Community College in Scottsdale, AZ.
Shadur’s work appears in many publications, books, and catalogs, including Twentieth Century Watercolors, Abbeville Press; The Special Unit, Barlinnie Prison, Its Evolution Through Art, Third Eye Centre, Glasgow, Scotland; Community Murals: The People’s Art, Associated University Press, NJ; and Art and Cartography, Art Institute of Chicago. Her mural work in Barlinnie Prison, Glasgow, Scotland is included in the archives of the Peoples Palace Museum in Glasgow.
An educator
Shadur has lectured widely on community arts in both the United States and abroad. She has curated numerous national exhibitions, including the ongoing ‘The Poetic Dialogue Project,’ which has traveled throughout the United States. Collaborative Vision: The Poetic Dialogue Project, featuring collaborative works by pairs of poets and artists, was exhibited at the Chicago Cultural Center in January-April 2009, and will travel to various university galleries.
In 2006, Shadur presented at the International Conference on Arts in Society in Edinburgh, Scotland, and her Poetic Dialogue Project was published in the International Journal on Arts In Society. Shadur has been awarded numerous Ragdale Fellowships and is a Thomas Watson Fellow from Brown University; from 2004-6, she served as Executive Director of ARC Gallery, Chicago. She participated in the Cool Globes Public Art Project in Chicago in 2007, and in 2008, was Artist-in-Residence at the Burren College of Art in Ireland through a Governor’s Award for International Arts Exchange from the Illinois Arts Council.
In 2009, she participated in ArtPrize, Grand Rapids, MI. In 2013, Shadur was a fellow at the Leighton Artist Colony at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Banff, Alberta, Canada. In 2016, she was awarded a residency at the Harfnarborg Art Center in Harfnarjardur, Iceland. She is currently working on her National Park Project, partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, creating works that are traveling throughout the state of Illinois.
Since 2012, Shadur serves as the Gallery Director at Prairie State College in Chicago Heights, IL. In 2016, she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of the Illinois State Museum. In 2022, she was appointed to the Board of the National Watercolor Honor Society. Her work is owned in many private and public collections.
